Circumnavigating San Fernando

This Time in 2007

Get up early for a dawn shoot on the beach. This is the best time of day as it gets far too hot to do anything later and by the time evening comes the heat has made you completely enervated.

Lee and I go for a walk before breakfast along the lake-shore trail. We say hello to several people as we go and meet Serena and Scott who are here from the USA and running English Language Classes. They are staying in a ramshackle place on the beach but seem to be enjoying themselves. We return to the Albergue in time for breakfast with Jim. We have heard that Carlos has managed to cross into Nicaragua but was forced to spend the night in San Carlos. We hope to see him later.

After breakfast Lee and I take a canoe out and decide to circumnavigate San Fernando. It took us about 2 and a quarter hours. The water was a bit choppy off the north coast and it seemed to take an age to cross the bay opposite La Venada. We see plenty of bird life but not may islanders except for the occasional woman doing the laundry. They have scrubbing stations set into the lake for this.

In the afternoon I made some butterfly lures from the netting I'd bought and filled them with fruit scraps left-over from breakfast. They worked too as they attracted several Caligos and a Archaeoprepona over the next few days.

Later Lee and I walked down to the museum and art gallery for a look around. Many years ago Ernesto Cardinal had introduced the islanders to prinitivist painting and many families still had a tradition of painting. Many also continued with the balsa wood carving introduced at the same time.

Returning to the Albergue we lazed around in the hammocks waiting for the day to cool off. Eventually I decided to go for another paddle around the small island opposite and stayed out until almost dark watching the sun go down. When I got back I found that Carlos had finally managed to cadge a ride from San Carlos.

After dinner we spent the evening drinking beer and discussing plans for tomorrow.

This Time Last Year

A rest day with a few odd jobs to do. Meet the new guests at the San Gildar Hotel in the evening. Take some panorama shots from the Pico Blanco Hotel.

Photo Restoration

Family

It's Kristines Mother's birthday tomorrow and I've promised to restore and print some old photographs from the 1920s and 1930s. They are not too damaged but some of them are very small so it will take a little bit of work. I wonder how large they want them printed!

Gallery

Have decided not to use the store/printing facilities attached to my Smugmug website. I had a couple of test prints made and I wasn't that impressed. Largely too dark. A b/w shot had a greenish cast too. I am going to print everything myself. At least this way I have control of the way they look and can also choose the paper. I think that'll be best even though it'll be more work for me. I have to improve my printing and matting skills in any case. I shall still have to deal with both imperial and metric sizes both for the prints and the mattes themselves. This is a pain.

This also means that I must post my "Warranty" page on the site and put up a price list.


This Time Last Year

I was up at 5am to take a walk. Surprisingly three guests came with me. A thin crescent moon sits over La Venada Island.

It takes us half an hour to walk to the look-out point but clouds have formed on the horizon and spoilt the sunrise. We wait a few minutes and manage a few shots.

We stroll back past the school and over the hill and along the shore on the track back to our Albergue Celentiname.

After breakfast we get the boat loaded with everyones luggage and finally leave Solentiname. Before arriving at San Carlos we take a detour to Bird Island (I can't remember its proper name). We watch hosts of Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills.

At San Carlos we change onto a public boat for the trip down the Rio San Juan to El Castillo. We take the fast boat which takes about 3 hours whilst our canoes come on the freighter which will arrive this evening. We stop at a river-side lodge for lunch before continuing to the Victoria Hotel in El Castillo.